Are We Entering the Age of Dynamic Tariffs?

By Matthew Ware, CEO at Mark 3 International

Tariffs on goods entering the US are changing so often that it seems like we are witnessing something like the dynamic pricing of concert tickets.

Trade tariffs have been a part of commercial life for centuries. From the ancient world and through the Middle Ages, governments and rulers would impose duties on goods entering their territories, primarily to raise revenue and control trade.

By the 19th century, free trade was on the rise and by the middle of the 20th century, in the wake of the Second World War, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was introduced to establish rules for international commerce, a responsibility since taken on by the World Trade Organization (WTO). 

Broadly speaking we’ve been on a historical journey that’s seen tariffs reduced or removed, but today things look very different. 

Since January 2025, US tariff policy has changed more than 50 times. These changes have been justified for a range of reasons, from tackling Fentanyl imports and stopping Russian oil sales through to protecting America’s domestic manufacturing sector.

However, as J.P. Morgan Global Research puts it, “The latest announcements have ignited an international response, increased market volatility and created material headwinds that J.P. Morgan Global Research believes will weigh on growth.”

This internationalisation, and politicisation, of tariffs is worrying. During the Great Depression, many countries increased tariffs. The US Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act, which raised tariffs on thousands of imported products, was met with retaliation from other countries which increased tariffs of their own as they tried to protect domestic industries and jobs. This escalation started a destructive chain reaction of retaliatory protectionism that severely worsened the lives of millions around the world.

Civic duties?

So, what’s going on?

One of the first things to understand is why the US has and continues to tinker with established trading norms.

As President Trump initially put it, April 2nd, 2025, would “forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn”, adding “Foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories, and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once-beautiful American Dream.”

That’s strong rhetoric, but what fuelled it?

There appears to be three main reasons. Firstly, to capture duty revenues that were historically exempted; secondly, to use richer data to screen for admissibility and IP/consumer-protection violations, and finally to disrupt narcotics smuggling that U.S. Customs and Border Protection argues is concentrated in the low-data, low-scrutiny postal channel.

Detractors would suggest it’s the administration appealing to its voter base, which thinks globalisation is hurting them. This is supported in an article by King’s College London that noted, “Trade has played a central role in the whole Trump phenomenon. His central pitch to voters centred on the idea of the US having been taken advantage of by trading partners and deindustrialised by low-cost imports.”

Beyond all this, it could be the President is simply trying to raise revenue without seeking the express permission of Congress. 

Historically, tariffs have been within the purview of Congress, but since the introduction of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) in 1977, the White House has been able to change tariff policy on the fly. This gave the President powers to impose economic sanctions, asset freezes, and other measures, but this administration has used them much more widely. And from one perspective – if you see the tariffs as a mechanism for raising revenue – they have worked.

Throughout 2025 and until February 20, 2026, when the Supreme Court ruled that IEEPA does not give the President authority to impose tariffs, the US government generated a further $165bn. To date, approximately $100bn has been refunded to the importers of record, but the point has been made; tariffs can, at least in the short term, fill the coffers.  

The era of “dynamic” tariffs

While it’s important to understand why America has gone down this path, it’s even more important to understand what the future looks like for businesses around the world. 

What we have learnt is that the White House will impose tariffs for myriad reasons, and with little or no warning. This makes forecasting, planning, and trading very difficult for exporters. 

So, what do we mean by “dynamic tariffs”?

Simply that tariffs are now being deployed like the dynamic pricing of concert tickets or dynamic content that we’ve seen in recent years, So it’s not simply higher tariffs. It is an environment in which tariff rates, exemptions, eligibility, customs procedures, and the policy rationale behind them, change rapidly. 

Ultimately, these frequent, instant changes force businesses to treat tariffs as a variable operating cost rather than a fixed feature of trade, with the result that the constant variation of costs, paperwork and administration will only go up. 

To take just one example of something that is expected to have long-term implications, consider enhanced datasets. This is information that has been enriched or improved by adding more information, context, quality, or structure to the original data. While valuable, it will add greater complexity to an already complicated environment.

This expansion in complexity is by no means confined to the US, it’s growing in popularity in other parts of the world too.

In the UK, as of September this year, the government announced and legislated the removal of the £135 Low Value Imports (LVI) customs duty relief. Additionally, the EU has abolished its €150 customs-duty exemption for low-value goods imported from outside its borders and has introduced a €3 customs duty for these low-value consignments. That’s €3 per item within a parcel.

As a result, exporters can expect to see higher costs, more compliance and data requirements, and greater uncertainty. This means businesses will ultimately need to be more conservative in their planning and be prepared to change course at a moment’s notice.

What to do?

It’s a fact of business life that the bigger an organisation is. or becomes, the less able it is to respond to rapidly changing circumstances. This may be due to a natural small ‘c’ conservatism, protecting what it has, taking fewer risks, or simply that on the way to becoming big the systems and processes that dictate how stuff gets done become ossified.

Typically, larger organisations cope less well when forced to adapt to a rapidly shifting landscape. Well-established, legacy systems, need more effort to change, but smaller, more nimble companies can do things quicker even if only because there will be less links in the chain of command.

In short, the smaller, nimbler company is your best bet when things are so volatile.

Conclusions

The core message that businesses must accept is that while the historically tranquil trading environment of the post war era is changing month-on-month, it’s not unmanageable. 

Larger companies are not known for their flexibility or reaction speed, but smaller ones are. It is to them that exporters should look.

Exports of goods to the US may have already declined sharply, and further changes are almost guaranteed, but if companies find the right organisations with whom to partner, take specialist advice, and accept that they may need to more regularly change processes, then they can remain competitive even in the face of dynamic tariffing. 

About the Author

Matthew Ware is Chief Executive Officer of Mark 3 International, where he is leading the company through growth in express parcel and freight logistics, with a particular focus on UK–US ecommerce trade.